The autumn leaves are falling like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are always two cups at my table.

T’ang Dynasty poem

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~

Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Balance Training for Martial Arts

Disrupting your opponents balance while maintaining your own is probably the most fundamental of martial arts strategies. It would be useful to understand balance a little more.Below is an excerpt from Starting Strength which defines just exactly what is balance and how to understand and cultivate it. The full article may be read here.

What is Balance?

Balance can be defined as the ability to maintain one’s center of mass vertically over the base of support, with minimal postural sway. Let’s break this definition down a bit to make sure everything is crystal clear.

The “center of mass”
(CoM) is a reference point representing the “averaged” mass of an
object or person in space. In other words, if I were to take your body
mass distribution in its current position and represent it as a single
point, this would be your center of mass. For most humans of average
anthropometry standing in anatomical position, this point lies somewhere
within the pelvis, typically just in front of the sacrum.

How do humans detect imbalance?

So
we’ve established that balance is maintained when the center of mass
lies directly over the base of support (i.e., the mid-foot). Now let’s
consider how humans detect imbalance. Although generally taken for granted, it requires a fascinating integration of three systems:

The Vestibular system is located in the inner ear and is connected to multiple other areas of the brain and body through the brainstem. It detects linear acceleration and rotation
of the head, and triggers reflexive compensatory movements to help us
maintain equilibrium. For example, when focused on an object while
rapidly turning your head to the right, you’ll notice that your eyes
compensate by turning leftward in order to stay “locked” on your target.
In addition, we can sense acceleration or tilting and adjust our
posture appropriately due to the activity of our vestibular system, even
in complete darkness. Impairments in this system typically result in
dizziness or vertigo, and can result from various neurological disorders
and diseases of the inner ear, trauma, strokes, tumors, medications,
and drug/alcohol use (e.g. “the spins”).

The Somatosensory system provides us with “proprioceptive” (position) and “kinesthetic” (movement)
senses, among several others. The skin and musculoskeletal system
detect and relay proprioceptive information along specialized sets of
nerves to tell our brain about the position and movement of our bodies
and joints. This is how you still know where your hands and feet are
without looking at them, and how you can feel where your weight is being
distributed across your feet. The sensory information coming from this
system helps you maintain desired positions and stay in balance without
having to watch your own body while you move. This is important since we
can’t see our lower back during a deadlift,
and we don’t actively watch our knees while we squat. Impairments in
this system typically result from conditions affecting the nervous
system (brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves) which commonly
include diabetes, strokes, medications, and drug/alcohol use among
numerous other conditions.

The Visual system’s role should be intuitively obvious: a major component of sensing our position and movement is simply seeing it.
Impairments in the visual system result in blindness and can result
from things like diabetes, cataracts, macular degeneration, and
glaucoma.

Interestingly, as long as at least
two of the three systems we’ve discussed are working normally, people
can still compensate enough to maintain their balance. For this reason
you might encounter the “Romberg test” in hospitals or at drunk driving
checkpoints, where the subject stands with the feet together and eyes
closed (effectively “turning off” the visual system), and the examiner
watches for significant swaying, unsteadiness, or falls that might
indicate a problem with one of the two “remaining” sensory systems,
usually proprioception.

How do humans overcome imbalance?

At
this point I’d like you to try something: stand up right where you are
and slowly lean forward onto your toes. You’ll immediately detect
imbalance using the systems I just described, then you’ll notice feeling
slightly uncomfortable as your calves, low back, and other leg muscles
start tugging to prevent you from falling on your face. This all relaxes
as you come back to the mid-foot balance point. Now, lean backwards
onto your heels and you’ll feel even more apprehensive as your
quadriceps and lower leg muscles start pulling very hard to prevent a
fall backwards. You might even reflexively extend your arms out in front
of you in an attempt to shift the center of mass forward again. This
again resolves as you come back to the mid-foot. All
of this “extra” muscular force is required to overcome the imbalance
resulting from the center of mass not being positioned directly over the
mid-foot. Read that again and be sure you understand, because this is fundamental. Muscular force is required to overcome imbalance, and therefore to maintain it.